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Lutterloh tape measure

I was given some fabrics by someone I met on Facebook who was having a clear out. They were furnishing fabrics, and coordinated well with one another. I had used some of the plain green fabric to make my walkaway dress, but had a fair amount left. The floral fabric I had originally wanted to use as the front of the walkaway dress had not been wide enough, but went so well with the green that I really wanted to use them together. Also, I have wanted to be a bit more adventurous with mixing fabrics.

I had really like the look of a Lutterloh pattern (112) for a while, and it seemed the perfect opportunity to give it a go. It was from the “domestic bliss” pages of the book (circa 1955), a few pages dedicated to making pinafores, aprons and coveralls for the modern woman so that she can set about her daily tasks suitably attired. This was a pinafore that you could wear over your smart clothes but gave pretty much full coverage and was quite large on initial stitching to reflect this fact.

I enlarged the pattern using a proper Lutterloh tape measure which I only recently acquired from e-bay. I had used a printed copy previously and have to say that using a proper measure makes it feel so much easier and I do feel that the points were more accurate. I did have a little help with this:

The floral fabric (curtain or cushion fabric) was much thicker than the plain green, but I like the contrast. The section is enough to give the whole dress body and the ‘jushhh’ factor I am often after. I love the shaping created by the pleats in the front. It did take a fair bit of altering as the centre front was particularly wide, which is why the shaping around the bust ended up being quite rounded and pronounced, it was while I was fiddling with it but then I liked it so I kept it. I feel it is quite a balanced look.

I have done very few button holes since restarting sewing, and not covered any buttons at all. I had intended too cover some normal buttons from my stash, but, as I was using the floral fabric, didn’t want to stitch through the covered button, so I bought some metal cover yourself buttons. Unfortunately, having spent a disproportionate amount of time choosing exactly which floral bits to make into buttons, I only had one successful button – one covered but quite squashed button, and one squashed but still refusing to clip into place button. I appreciate that my fabric was quite thick, but still found it disappointing. A few days later, I purchased the same buttons but the plastic version (cheaper but I just liked the metal ones better) and these worked so much better. So I finally had my funky buttons.

The overlap at the back was quite large and I had to reduce this, and also decide whether to just stitch down the back or leave the extra fabric from the crossover in. I went with the latter.

I am very pleased with my results, not the best sewn dress ever, but I think it is really quite pretty.